Racing in Belgium has the uncomfortable tendency to remind neo-professionals that they’re not in Kansas anymore. Bradley Wiggins’ first taste of the Classics came at Omloop Het Volk in 2002, when he lined up in the colours of La Française des Jeux, and once the peloton hit that peculiarly Flemish version of the yellow brick road, he was quickly jettisoned out the back.
“I remember almost knocking [Johan] Museeuw off on the entry to Côte du Trieu because I was fighting to be up there,” Wiggins said. “I had [Andrei] Tchmil on one side and Museeuw on the other and I just remember thinking to myself ‘what the fuck are you doing here? These guys are way better than you.’ So I just got out of the way, went to the back, got dropped and that was it.
“I got dropped after 30k so I didn’t even make it to the Kwaremont. Because of the respect I had for those guys I didn’t want to get in their way. You have to earn the right to be in the first 20 or 30 positions with those guys.”
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Wiggins was speaking in Kortrijk on Friday on the eve of his first appearance at the Omloop since 2005, and while much has changed in interim – the race now carries the name of another Belgian newspaper, Het Nieuwsblad, and his old nemesis the Trieu does not feature on the parcours, for instance – the Englishman is back on familiar ground and in a familiar position.
Like on those first, tentative efforts on the pavé over a decade ago, Wiggins is, with Paris-Roubaix in mind, trying to earn the right to a long-term lease on some prime real estate at the head of the peloton. The Hell of the North is his final race in the colours of Team Sky, and unlike twelve months ago, Wiggins will ride a full programme of cobbled races in preparation for the last grand challenge of his road career.
“It’s good to get into the mind-set for these races, to get to know the roads and for the others guys, Boonen and that, to see you there,” Wiggins explained. “When it comes to the real fight, they’re perhaps happy to sit behind you and not push you off the wheel because they know you won’t lose the wheel. So it’s confidence for everyone that they see you there.”
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